Chandigarh Admn seeks MHA approval for portal to check delay in time-bound services

He informed the Administrator that 556 services across 35 departments of the Chandigarh Administration had been notified under the Right to Service Act. Of these, 432 services were available online, while 124 continued to be provided offline.

The Administrator directed officials to take immediate steps to make the remaining 124 services available online. He also directed them to bring more services under the ambit of the Right to Service Act and organise awareness campaigns to inform citizens about the notified services and how to access them.

Under the system, if a designated officer fails to deliver a notified service within the prescribed time, the application will automatically be escalated as an appeal to the higher authority, without requiring the citizen to file a manual appeal.

However, the system has not yet been implemented on the ground. The commission has taken up the matter with the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for implementation of a dedicated IT-enabled AAS portal.

“The Right to Service Commission should ensure implementation of the auto appeal system, the backbone of this golden Act. In its absence, citizens continue to be deprived of an effective statutory remedy. A law celebrated as a guarantee of time-bound services becomes meaningless when its most vital enforcement mechanism remains unimplemented,” said Ajay Jagga, author of a book on the Right to Service Act and a member of the UT Administrator’s Advisory Council.

According to the report, the commission recorded 41 appeals before First Appellate Authorities (FAAs), 28 appeals before Second Appellate Authorities (SAAs) and five revision petitions before the commission during 2025-26. This was a sharp rise compared to previous years, when only one appeal had reached each level annually.

The SAAs are empowered to impose penalties ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 5,000 on defaulting officers or staff.

During 2025-26, a total of 15,33,438 applications were received under the Right to Service Act, averaging 1,27,787 applications a month. Of these, 12,68,135 (82.7 per cent) were disposed of, while 2,63,790 (17.2 per cent) were pending within the prescribed time limit.

As many as 1,513 applications were delayed.

The Police Department received the highest share of applications at 15.27 per cent, followed by the RLA (13.73 per cent), CTU (12.22 per cent), MC (12.12 per cent) and DC office (12.05 per cent).